Pedaling the nation for a real purpose

After graduating from college, Matt Will questioned what he wanted to do with his life. So, he loaded up a bicycle with provisions and hit the seemingly endless American road to find his purpose.

On Tuesday, the 23-year-old’s quest ended in the Atlantic Ocean surf after pedaling 4,176.9 miles from his parents’ home in Fountain Hills to California to the Jersey Shore.

“The one big lesson I think I learned is, nothing is really that hard,” Will said from New Jersey. “Life is simple; the answers are right in front of you.

“It’s all up to the individual, and how much work you want to put into something.”

Even better than finding himself, he helped others with every turn of the tires on his cobbled-together mountain bike.

Will raised more than $10,000, through per-mile pledges, for the Phoenix-based Southwest Autism Research & Resource Center. Donations are still being accepted at www.cool2beeme.com/cureautism.

This act of charity, it’s fair to say, found Will. He was doing some temp work a week before his late-April departure when he met Brent Barker, a Phoenix real estate executive.

Barker learned about Will’s voyage of self-discovery and convinced him “you may as well do it for the right thing, for the right reason.”

And so Will had a cause. He also had his parents’ support, although it took some convincing.

“We thought he was crazy and tried to discourage him,” Ron Will said.

Then, Ron and wife Pat figured out when their son said “biking” he didn’t mean on the back of a motorcycle.

“Then we really thought he was crazy,” Ron Will said. “It took us about a month to get really behind him.”

What Will lacked was training and knowledge of what it would take to bike across the country. His preparation was intentionally limited to taking the bike on short shakedown rides and feasting on Burger King.

“I wanted to make it as hard as possible and see if I could do it,” Will recalled.

On April 29, Will set out for Laguna Beach, Calif. As his mother remembered, he didn’t look back once before rounding a corner toward his destiny.

In the Mohave Desert, Will learned the hard way that energy drinks, and not water, were the best way to stay hydrated. He also found out the famed windmills outside Palm Springs are there for a reason, as a wicked headwind had Will looking for detours.

Back in Fountain Hills, “I think we were both taking sedatives that first week,” Ron Will said.

After dipping his bike tires in the Pacific, Will turned around and headed for the Atlantic. He caught up with his family in Prescott, after they had celebrated his sister’s graduation from nearby Northern Arizona University.

And from there, it was one story after another — and huge carbohydrate-loaded meal after another, and blown tire tube after another — until Will was met by a cheering crowd in Stone Harbor, N.J.

“I know I can take from this the confidence I can do anything,” Will said. “As long as I’m willing to work hard, everything’s going to work out.”